Why people in India does not buy an iPhone ?

Apple, World’s first trillion dollar company is yet to make an impact in the country. It’s product, the iPhone is one of the most widely used smartphones in the US and European markets. But with a billion people, why can’t Apple sell it’s phones in India ?

One of the primary factors people does not buy an iPhone in India is they don’t find it valuable for the price they are paying for it. An iPhone X costs Rs. 1 Lakh in the country, the cost at which one could buy a gaming laptop with decent specs. Tata announced a car which costed the same.

iPhone X costs $999 in US, but still people buy them. Is cost the only reason ? Maybe yes. Maybe Not. Firstly, people in US buy iPhones on contract from their retailers. When you buy iPhone X in US on contract, you pay $50 monthly for 24 months which includes the price of the mobile along with bills you have to pay for the carrier. Along with it, you get an option to replace your iPhone with a new one every year. This option is not available in India, and its carriers in India like Airtel and Jio does not seem to offer the same value the carriers in US offers.

Secondly, when you spend a 1000 $ on a smartphone you need a reason to spend that much money. People value Apple as a brand that they can trust in other countries than people in India. People in India look at specifications before they buy a smartphone and manufacturers like Mi and Vivo offer better specifications at a much lower price which even companies like Samsung and Nokia the once leaders of Indian market find tough to compete with.

iPhone is an complete package when you have certain additions in it. For example syncing music in your iPhone is a complete hell when you don’t use Apple Music. You need to plug in your phone to sync with iTunes to get an .mp3 file into your phone. But with Apple Music its a breeze but it comes at a premium. Indian market does not want to add an premium when they can get it for free somewhere else. They just need a phone that can download a mp3 off the internet and play in on their smartphones which an iPhone cannot do.Amazon Music, Apple Music, Spotify these premium music services are just making their way into the Indian market. But still there is a long way to go to make cloud streaming services popular in the country. iPhone relies a lot on these cloud streaming services.

People don’t use Mac’s in India. They are too expensive. And iPhone does not work well with Windows laptops. Even copying photos from your iPhone to Windows PC is a mess.iCloud ? another premium service is not an option here.

Apple music, iCloud does not make sense when other manufactures like Mi offers it at an much lower price. Technically an iPhone can shoot an much better photo than an Redmi Note. But when you take a look at the specifications, Redmi has a much better hardware than iPhone. But still, spend thousands more to buy an phone ? Maybe Redmi’s camera is much better off for us than to spend a thousands more on an iPhone.